The European Union (EU) in the “Project Europe 2030” is continuing to follow “Europe 2020” set out as a vision of social market economy for the 21st century. One of the tools to achieve this vision is to increase numbers of social entrepreneurship (SE) and promote this business model. SE creates sustainable and inclusive growth and stimulates social innovations. Social entrepreneurship has a potential to bring forward new approaches to big challenges that Europe is facing such as an ageing population, growing inequality, climate change, and youth unemployment.Only a few universities in Europe such as Roskilde University and the London School of Economics and Political Sciences offer study programmes whereas social entrepreneurship is incapsulated either as a specialization or a module. A survey carried out in partners’ home institutions and the discussions held among partners during the preparatory meetings revealed that: (1) none of the partners has a programme or a model for encouraging educators to incorporate the concept of social entrepreneurship in their teaching practices; (2) none of the partners offer social entrepreneurship as study track, module or study programme; (3) more importantly, teachers critically lack knowledge and skills about social entrepreneurship in Lithuania, Latvian and Cyprus partner institutions. The emergence of social entrepreneurship is prevented by number of barriers. obstacles are different in different countries, but the most common is a lack of understanding of the concept of “social entrepreneurship” across Europe.Poor recognition of this term is in all chains of market from policy makers, public servants to public in general, investors, prospective customers. Another barrier faced by social entrepreneurship is a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, managerial and professional skills, competencies necessary for scaling up activities.Higher education institutions (HEI) are the shapers and innovators of our communities that help foster cultural, social and economic vitality. Social entrepreneurship track their development throughout education sector and notes that young people still lack knowledge of social entrepreneurship and its peculiarities.The problem is lack of understanding of the concept of “social entrepreneurship” and lack of necessary skills to develop social entrepreneurship in HEIs.This project aims at raising awareness about social entrepreneurship and its benefits around higher education institutions’ community and in wider range, to promote the development of this business model. The objective is to raise awareness about social entrepreneurship and its benefits around teachers, students and society. HEI’s academics’ have skills gaps in this area. It is necessary to development teachers’ competences and update study programmes, to make them more relevant to current Europe’s economic, social model and international labor market situation. It is evident that there is an urgent need to promote social entrepreneurship among educators and to produce highly qualified graduates capable of addressing profound social challenges faced by our communities and Europe in general. Therefore, is it urgent to empower teachers so that they could deliver high quality teaching whereas the development of social entrepreneurship knowledge and competences are emphasized. In order to achieve the aim of this project it has to be implemented transnationally in collaboration of institutions from different countries with different levels of expertise in the field.Countries with stronger expertise (Belgium, Finland) will create model of development of “Social entrepreneurship” competencies in higher education institutions and will create training methodology for teachers from countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus) and will provide training. Trained teachers with new tool and knowledge will make training to local teachers about “Social entrepreneurship” so that they could integrate this knowledge into their teaching subjects. As a result of the training a new curriculum on “Social entrepreneurship” will be created and will be integrated into the study processes of partner universities involved.

Pitkäkestoisten, monimuotoisten ja epävarmuuksia sisältävien päätöksien teko on vaikeaa. Se vaikeutuu entisestään tilanteissa, joissa päätöksen analysoi yksi henkilö ja lopullinen päätös kuuluu toiselle. Hyvät sijoitusmahdollisuudet menetetään, koska analyysin ja raportoinnin työkalut eivät löydä niitä. Huonot sijoitusmahdollisuudet läpäisevät päätösprosessin, koska niihin liittyvät riskit eivät näy käytetyissä lähestymistavoissa. SimDec on läpimurtoteknologia, joka on peräisin LUT -yliopiston kauppakorkeakoulusta. Se on yksinkertainen mutta tehokas työkalu, jolla on innovatiivinen lähestymistapa epävarmuusanalyysiin ja joka ratkaisee suuren osan analyysin ja päätöksentekijöiden dualismin vaikeuksista. SimDec on ainutlaatuinen tekniikka niin kutsuttuun moniulotteiseen analyysiin (multifactor analysis), joka kykenee paljastamaan tekijöiden vuorovaikutuksen ja auttamaan päätöksentekijää kannattavan strategian muotoilussa. Innovatiivisen lähestymistapamme arvo on jo osoitettu sekä akateemisessa että johtotehtävissä. SimDecistä on julkaistu useita akateemisia artikkeleita arvostetuissa lehdissä ja sillä on alan asiantuntijoiden suosituksia hyödyllisyydestä ja useiden miljardien teknologiayritysten aiesopimuksia. Ehdotetussa Research-to-Business-hankkeessa pyrimme valmistelemaan SimDecin kaupallistamisstrategian. Hankkeen loppuun mennessä (i) päivitämme SimDecin kehittyneellä 'liikesalaisuuden ' suositusalgoritmilla, (ii) teemme perusteellisen markkinatutkimuksen, (iii) selvitämme, mistä markkinasegmentistä aloitamme kaupallistamisen ja millä keinoilla ja lopuksi (iv) kehitämme SimDec-konseptiratkaisun ja testaamme sitä pilottitutkimuksissa (jo) kiinnostuneiden yritysten kanssa.

Muutos on elämyksen syvin taso, täysin ainutlaatuinen ja ikimuistoinen kokemus, joka muuttaa ihmistä kohti parempaa. Mielenpainuvan matkailuelämyksen lähtökohta on yleensä muutos, vaikka pienikin. Suomessa on kuitenkin vielä vähän puhuttu näistä mieleenpainuvista ihmistä muuttavista elämyksistä, siitä miten ne syntyvät ja miten niillä voidaan luoda yritystoiminnasta entistä kannattavampaa ja ympärivuotista. Hankkeessa luodaankin ymmärrys ja toimintamalli tällaisten elämysten mahdollistamiseksi. Hankkeen tarkoituksena ymmärtää, miten yritysten ja yhteisön kestävyyttä (taloudellista, sosio-kulttuurista ja ekologista) voidaan edistää rakentamalla muutosmatkailupalvelut asiakkaan elämyspolun näkökulmasta huomioiden digitaalisuuden mahdollisuudet palveluprosesseissa ja tutkimuksessa. Hankkeen tuloksena luodaan matkailuyrityksille työkaluja kestävyyteen - ja digitaalisuuteen - perustuvien muutoselämysten kehittämiselle ja muutosprosessille. Hankkeessa toimenpiteiden avulla vastataan seuraaviin kysymyksiin: • Millaiset asiat mahdollistavat muutosmatkailuelämyksen asiakkaalle ja millainen kysyntäpotentiaali muutosmatkailuelämyksillä on eri kohdemarkkinoilla? • Minkälainen on suomalaisten muutosmatkailuelämyksien nykytila ja miten muutosmatkailun merkitys on sisäistetty yritysten ja matkailutoimialan sisällä? • Millaisilla resursseilla voidaan mahdollistaa kestävyyttä ja digitaalisuutta hyödyntävät ja yrityksille ja asiakkaille lisäarvoa tuottavat muutosmatkailuelämykset? • Minkälaisia mahdollisuuksia muutosmatkailuun perustuvilla elämyksillä on yritysten liiketoimintaan ympärivuotisuuden, digitaalisuuden, kestävyyden ja uusien asiakasryhmien näkökulmasta? Hankkeen tutkimus kontribuoi kansainvälisesti uuteen ja tulevaisuuden kannalta merkittävään tutkimukseen.. Hankkeella haastetaan myös yritykset ja matkailukenttä ajattelemaan elämyksiä uudella tavalla ja mahdollistetaan muutosmatkailun omaksuminen työkalupakin avulla

The European population is ageing and more people live into old age. This also means that there is an increase of age-related diseases such as dementia, placing higher levels of demand on caring services. People that suffer from dementia are excluded from social productivity, are at high risk of social exclusion and have a high demand for care. At the same time, there is an increasing lack of professionals in elderly care [2016, Eurostat]. Governmental authorities across Europe recognize this trend and promised more investments in the domain of elderly care. However, students do not consider the elderly sector as a fulfilling career option, leaving a gap between supply and demand for the care of the elderly. The iConnect project aimed to motivate students to make elderly care a potential and viable option for their study and future career, in parallel to the social inclusion of older people with dementia, by bringing them together in an intergenerational creative approach. We aimed to improve the knowledge and skills of students, the future care professionals, with our innovative creative learning program combining elements like music, art, play and drama. This way students, but also other stakeholders involved, will be equipped to contribute to the goals of dementia friendly environments. Through our project students gained new knowledge and skills related to communication, empathy and creativity, into practice while they make contact with people with dementia. People with dementia felt recognized and reinforced in their identity which enhanced the quality of life.The project selected a number of stakeholders as participants for activities and the output, being students and educators from Higher Education Institutes (HEI), care organisations and care professionals, specialised in dementia care, older people with dementia and their family and/or care givers and policy makers.Throughout the project we delivered 4 intellectual outputs; the Needs Specification Report (a research on current practices related to the use of creative elements and the needs of all involved stakeholders for the implementation of a inclusive dementia care), an innovative Module with learning and teaching material for educators and students, a Blended Learning Platform (based on Moodle structure) and the Transnational Implementation Guidelines, which helps HEI’s and educators across Europe to implement the training, the platform and the teaching material, supporting the impact, replicability and sustainability of iConnect. The guidelines takes up all the findings from the pilot and is complete package, including a teacher and student module, assessment methods, PowerPoints, manuals, index, video instructions and the online blended platform.The iConnect module adapted a co-design and partnership approach amongst students, educators, care providers and older people with dementia in developing all material and the online learning platform. Therefore creation of these 4 end products was supported by activities organised within the context of the project. We organized focus sessions, held interviews and organised an international Learning, Teaching and Training Activity (LTTA), which was a peer-to-peer training in which the participants shared skills and competences. Through the LTTA we trained the teachers and staff who would work with students in the pilot later in this project. The module was tested during this pilot of this project with students participating from four different HEI’s; Hogeschool Utrecht (HU, Netherlands), LAB University of Applied Sciences (LAB, Finland), University of Ioannina (UoI, formerly named TEI, Greece) and Udine University (UNIUD, Italy). Throughout the project each partner organised activities such as presentations, workshops and webinars in which the output was disseminated, tested or discussed. From all these activities given feedback was used to optimise the final outputs.At least 1000 stakeholders were reached through dissemination activities with an overall positive response. For the participating stakeholders the direct impact was enriching the awareness, knowledge, skills and attitudes. Especially in presentations, workshops and webinars participants vocalised their interest and accomplished awareness on the subject, which resulted in an increased willingness among educators to include the module within curricula. The module was used in HEI partners during the pilot and is now integrated in the curriculum of all partner HEI’s for the year(s) to come, sometimes even with a elaboration of the module. Participating students developed a compassionate and empathetic attitude to improve caring towards older people with dementia. Teachers felt empowered and equipped they can now transfer this new knowledge and skills on to the students. With older adults with dementia who participated in the pilot a decrease in the aggressive behaviour of the older adults was seen.